My Work and Personal Life

My Work Life

I left Bury Grammar School at 16 and spent the next 36 years training as, qualifying as and practising as a Chartered Accountant. An opportunity arose for me to have a career change after my accountancy firm was merged into a national business.

Do you believe in fate? I do. 2 years before I left my accountancy career I was training as a trainer with the Dale Carnegie Organisation. This was simply to be a hobby not knowing I was going to leave accountancy some short time later.

As a result of the merger I set up a presentation and training business in 2000. As an accountant it seems I was extremely good at attracting clients but realised most professional people, whilst great at the technical aspect of the job struggled with marketing selling and promotion. So I recognised a huge gap in the market for people to become more confident and effective networkers in the professional and financial communities. In the mid ’noughties’ when budgets reduced dramatically I had to find new markets and these have turned out to be the not-for-profit and academic worlds.

Since 2000 I would like to think I have established myself as a leading UK provider of professional development training, having presented to over 80,000 people Europe-wide. After all ‘I’ve been Kintished’ seems to have taken on as a phrase well-known to people who have heard my presentations.